House lawmakers defied a White House veto threat and passed a defense appropriations bill for fiscal 2016 that uses a war funding account to bypass mandatory budget cuts for military operations and maintenance costs.
The vote was 278-149, with only five Republican budget hawks joining most Democrats in opposing the bill, which allots $578.6 billion for the Pentagon and nuclear weapons programs of the Energy Department, an increase of $24.4 billion from fiscal 2015 and $800 million more than President Obama requested. It includes $88.4 billion in overseas contingency operations, roughly double the amount Obama requested.
The White House late Tuesday said Obama would veto the bill if it includes a provision shifting regular spending into the war funding account, which is exempt from sequestration requirements. Democrats have called the funding shift a “gimmick.”
Obama and both Republican and Democratic leaders all have called for an end to sequestration, which was enacted as part of the Budget Control Act of 2011. Military leaders have repeatedly complained that it’s causing a crisis in defense readiness as the gap between what the armed forces are being asked to do and Pentagon funding grows.
Before passage, lawmakers worked through dozens of amendments over two days, turning away Democratic efforts to remove a bar on funding to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and transfer its prisoners to the United States — another issue which the White House cited in its veto threat.
The House did adopt a pair of amendments by Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., to rescue a fund designed to help pay for a replacement for the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines. Forbes is chairman of the seapower subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, which had expanded the fund it created last year in its annual authorization bill.
The amendment had the support of Democratic members who, like Forbes, represent districts where building submarines is a major local industry.
“In four years we’ll begin the procurement, in six years we’ll start construction, of 12 ships they call boats that will carry 70 percent of the nuclear deterrent of this country — $92 billion,” Forbes said Wednesday. “The National Sea-Based Deterrent Fund we formed last year helps us prepare for that, instead of waiting until the night before to come up with $92 billion.”
